Chapter 3 - A Photograph Outside My Father's House
I read the message three times before I could breathe. The image showed my father beneath the porch light, carrying the battered toolbox he had owned since I was a child. Whoever took it had been close enough to see the chipped blue paint on our front steps.
I called Dad. He answered on the fourth ring, cheerful and sleepy. He said he was fine, that he'd just put the trash out, that I worried too much. I didn't tell him about the photograph. I didn't want him standing at the window all night.
Instead I went to Marco. He was finishing his rounds in the mansion's quiet foyer. When he saw my face, he didn't ask whether I was sure. He asked for the phone.
Within ten minutes Lorenzo appeared, his tie loosened, his expression grim. He read the threat and immediately called the local police. He also arranged for a marked patrol to check my father's street. I was relieved he didn't suggest some private punishment carried out in a basement. Fear had already made the world ugly enough.
“Could Cassandra have sent it?” I asked.
“Possibly,” he said. “But I won't accuse anyone without proof.”
That answer surprised me. I had heard stories about the Moretti family since childhood. Some were surely exaggerated. Others weren't. Yet the man standing in front of me was making himself wait for evidence.
We drove to my father's house together with Marco. Dad opened the door in slippers and stared at the black car in his driveway. He recognized Lorenzo immediately. His eyes moved from the tattoos to my frightened face.
“What happened?” he asked.
I told him everything. Not just the photograph. The dinner. Evelyn's tears. Cassandra's threat. My father listened with his hands clasped, then sat down heavily at the kitchen table.
“I lost my job,” he said, “but I didn't lose my right to protect my daughter.”
“You've always protected me,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “Now we protect each other.”
Lorenzo offered to arrange a temporary hotel for us until the police could investigate. Dad refused to abandon the house. After some discussion, we agreed he would stay with my aunt two streets away while a security camera was installed and the police collected a statement.
At dawn, I returned to the mansion exhausted. Evelyn was awake in the sunroom, trying to button her cardigan. She smiled when she saw me, then noticed my face.
“Tell me,” she said.
I showed her the message. Her expression changed in a way I'd never seen. Not fear. Recognition.
“Cassandra didn't come into this family alone,” she whispered. “Her brother, Victor, has been asking questions about Lorenzo's businesses.”
“Why would that matter to me?”
May you like
Evelyn looked at the photograph again. “Because some people punish the person they can reach when they can't control the person they want.”
Then she reached for my hand. “There is something in my late husband's study that Lorenzo needs to see.”
